In a month, Ukraine will have a chance to become a candidate for membership in the European Union. Ukraine has fulfilled about 49% of its obligations under the Association Agreement since 2014. And the unprecedented promises of the EU leadership not to delay these first stages testify to the positive and very warm attitude towards Ukraine and Ukrainian European integration at the EU institutional level. However, the issue of enlargement is accepted by the governments of the member states based on the opinion of their citizens. But despite the high level of support from the citizens of EU member states, the political leadership of some EU countries pursues policies that are far from what their society expresses. Therefore, Ukraine needs to articulate its position very clearly outside. The experts talked about all the challenges and recipes for decisions on the approach to Ukrainian European integration during the online discussion OPORA.LIVE on May 25.
The EU Summit where Ukraine's application will be considered will be held on June 23-24. We're waiting for the opinion of the European Commission. For its part, OPORA was involved in filling out the EU Questionnaire in the "Political Dialogue" chapter.
"The interest of both civil society and the entire population of Ukraine is very high. Recent rating evidence this - the latest sociology shows that 86% of Ukraine's population is in favor of Ukraine joining the European Union," OPORA's representative Iryna Shvets.
In 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine included norms on Ukraine's strategic course towards membership in the European Union and NATO. Ukraine seeks full integration and accession to the European Union. With the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion on February 28, 2022, Ukraine applied for accession to the EU under the accelerated procedure. On March 1, the European Parliament recommended that Ukraine be granted EU candidate status. And on March 7, the European Union launched a procedure for consideration of applications for the accession of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.
According to Dr. Tetiana Komarova, Ph.D., Professor of EU Law at the Yaroslav the Wise National Law University, an expert at the EU project Pravo-Justice, it is important that every Ukrainian now knows what we should expect in the context of European integration. "I think it's very important now that every ordinary Ukrainian knows what we have and can count on. Because unfortunately, we hear not very good narratives now, that we are not welcome in the EU, that we can be in the EU only in 10-15 years, even though the situation allegedly pushes the EU to open its door to us. And we hear a lot of narratives from France that maybe Ukraine should not hurry with the EU, that maybe we should create some analogs. I want to say right now that these analogs should not suit us. Our position must be united. We no longer have to choose where to go. We have already chosen that path," Tetiana Komarova said.
Regarding the accession criteria, the expert notes the EU won't invent special procedures or requirements for Ukraine. We'll follow the path given in the so-called EU Constitution. These are bureaucratic procedures and established practices enshrined in the EU's founding treaties. The only written requirement is Article 49 of the EU Treaty. It states that any European country that respects EU values and is able to spread them can apply to join the EU. "In fact, we hear only two demands for a country to apply. First, the country must be European. And second, it must respect the values on which the European Union is based," Tetiana Komarova said.
Also, she noted that the Europeanness of the state is not a geographical criterion as it may seem. After all, the practice of accession of some countries, such as Cyprus, has shown that Europeanness is primarily close ties to Europe - cultural, political, historical, and economical. The EU values are the basic principles sacramental to the EU. Their violation is punished severely. There are six: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including those belonging to minorities.
"Perhaps some EU leaders and bureaucrats may argue and say that there are many problems in Ukraine. For example, with the rule of law in the context of corruption. But Europe itself is not perfect (Gerhard Schroeder, "Merkel Syndrome"). Maybe, there are indeed some problems in Ukraine, but Ukraine is now the most popular country in the world, which proves that we are able to spread these values," Tetiana Komarova said.
The direct criteria for EU membership are written in the so-called Copenhagen criteria (the 1990s). According to the expert, they are, in fact, a mistrust syndrome when the EU began to accept not only the Old Europe countries. It's a sieve on whether a state is convenient for the EU. The Copenhagen criteria set out three broad groups of requirements: 1) political (the country has developed a sufficient level of democracy), 2) economic (market economy able to withstand competitive pressure in the EU market), 3) organizational/legal (legislation is adjusted). The expert notes that the criteria for membership are recommendations. This is a field for maneuver. After all, even if a country fully complies with these criteria, when the EU isn't ready to accept it, the EU is always able to refuse. So, the accession process is about political will.
"When Zelensky applied to the EU Council on February 28, he stressed that Ukraine wants to apply an accelerated procedure or a special accession procedure. What did the President mean? Did he refer to any regulations? No. It was a contextual statement. Because in the founding agreements and in the practice of accession, EU enlargement, there is no such thing as an accelerated or special procedure. Because, as I have already said, the procedures are quite stable and bureaucratic. And even under the extraordinary conditions in which Ukraine finds itself, it is impossible to skip stages in any way. I think that the President did not mean either jumping over or neglecting these procedures in any way, but he meant not delaying these procedures. Because sometimes, the EU delays each stage of accession quite a bit. Why? For political reasons. I want to say that the accession process is not about law at all. It's about politics," Tetiana Komarova said.
Komarova talked about four stages of joining the EU: 1) application stage, when the state submits an application; 2) evaluation when the EU Commission evaluates it; 3) negotiation upon the terms of the Agreement on accession; 4) ratification when all countries approve the Agreement.
"We are now in the evaluation stage when Ukraine has submitted the completed Questionnaires to the European Commission. Both the European Commission and the European Parliament immediately said that they would not bureaucratize and delay this procedure for a long time. This issue will be resolved in June. For example, it took Turkey 12 years to obtain candidate status. Ukraine can hope that in two months, our destiny will be determined - whether we will be a candidate country or not. In this, in such subtleties, this special procedure is manifested, and not in jumping over the stages. If Ukraine gets the candidate status, it will be very good. That is, it means that a positive decision was made on our Questionnaire, which we filled out. And there are two Questionnaires. The first part is related to the first two criteria - political and economic. That is, we showed that we have a market economy, that we have developed sufficiently democratic institutions. And the second part is the largest (more than 4,000 pages and more than 300 experts took part in its completion). It just proves that our legislation is more or less adapted to the standards of the European Union. And this was definitely a great aid in the fact that we have an Association Agreement. The Association Agreement is our homework to harmonize our legislation with that of the European Union. I think that we will receive the status of a candidate country in June," Tetiana Komarova said.
But the next stage, negotiating the terms of the Accession Agreement, is the most difficult. And according to the expert, it can last a very long time - from several years to decades. "I will not predict how long our negotiation phase will last. Because, of course, until the end of the war, until the end of the military conflict, Ukraine's membership is not very likely. This is a message that no one tells, but it is quite clear. And only then will there be difficult negotiations. And it will be very important how our diplomacy will work," Tetiana Komarova said.
According to Liubov Akulenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Center for European Policy, a large team has been monitoring how Ukraine implements the Association Agreement with the EU since 2014. Their latest data are as of the first half of 2021.
"Ukraine performed somewhere around 49% of the Agreement. But this is the "average temperature". Now, this figure is not very similar to the one Office tells because, as I understand it, the Office estimated data up to the end of 2021, and we could not do this. How are we different from the Office? We have always been very strict about the Agreement. And we assessed only two areas - a change in legislation and whether they work in practice. If there are these two components, then we thought the task was done. If something doesn't work, we don't take it into account. And very often, our estimates did not match. Then we changed the methodology and decided to correlate with the Office. Because this Agreement is really very difficult to perform," Liubov Akulenko said.
According to her, in recent years, Ukraine has moved from the stage when we change the legislation to the stage when the norms start working. We are the most successful in removing technical barriers to trade ("industrial visa-free regime"), energy, and the digital market. Another important successful element is the launch of the Prozorro public procurement system, the launch of transplant reform, and a breakthrough in customs legislation to make procedures more computerized. She notes that we implement the Agreement by bits in different areas. But some sectors are still not even in the process of drafting legislation, such as transport, media, and education policies.
"I am not so sure that we will receive this candidate status because now the sentiments in the countries are very different. But working in this field, I really want to believe that everything will be positive," Liubov Akulenko said.
According to the expert, there are factors that will be challenging for us. This is the resources and lack of personnel, in particular, due to the large number of people going abroad because of the war. Also, there are those in each sector who support and don't support reforms. "You must understand the goal where you are going. We have taken on a huge part of the commitments. And it is very difficult to fulfill them without sufficient staffing, without the financial support that the accession countries received. That is, we took on the Agreement, in fact, to become a candidate, and no tools were given to us. And we, as experts, of course, understand this, but MPs do not have time to deal with technical things. They must understand a clear goal, and very often, it is impossible to find it there except for exports because it does not exist. Now I believe that after receiving the candidate status, if there is a positive decision and they give it to us, even if there will be some conditions, for example, to do some homework - there have been such cases - this situation will change. We will have to move on for a long time with all the other problems. On the one hand, we want to move very quickly through the negotiation process. But seeing the picture from the inside, how it all moved before and now, I have big fears that we will face a huge shortage of staff in the civil service," Liubov Akulenko said
According to Marianna Fakhurdinova, an analyst at the New Europe Center at the institutional level of the EU, we can talk about a positive and very warm attitude towards Ukraine and Ukrainian European integration. But it is clear the member governments decide about the EU enlargement based on the views of their citizens.
The expert also cited figures from the latest poll of EU citizens on Ukraine's accession one day when it's ready. In total, 66% of EU citizens support accession. The highest support level, about 80%, is in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and, unexpectedly, Portugal (87%). Instead, the lowest level of support is expected in Hungary, as well as in Bulgaria, Luxembourg, and Austria. But even in these countries, the level of support for EU accession is about 50%, which is quite optimistic.
"European countries can be divided into the following three groups: 1) a group of friends of Ukraine who unequivocally support our membership, 2) countries that have certain reservations, 3) and countries, let's call them so, neutralists. In fact, in the club of friends of Ukraine, we traditionally include our friends, our neighbors - Poland, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia. These are the countries that publicly declare their support for Ukraine's course to EU membership. These are the countries that once signed bilateral declarations that supported Ukraine's accession to the EU. These are the countries that now give us the biggest political, technical, and financial assistance. In fact, this is, in general, the expected result. The only thing I want to note is that the support is really so big that even the leaders of some countries, such as Polish President Andrzej Duda and Slovak President Zuzana Caputova, recently announced that they would even go on a joint tour to Western European capitals. And they will jointly convince skeptical countries that Ukraine should be granted candidate status in June. This is an extraordinary level of support," Marianna Fakhurdinova said.
The experts also discussed what the formula for Ukraine's accession to the EU might be. And what we need to work on more now - negotiations or harmonization of legislation.
"There was no country that would join the EU with 100% homework done. I emphasize once again that joining is a political motivation to take to your private club," Tetiana Komarova said. The EU Commission is meticulously evaluating us to have guarantees that we as future partner won't deliver problems. But if we look at the real situation, who are members of this club, we understand that these procedures and requirements are a bit ineffective. She notes that these procedures are somewhat outdated and worked in the 1990s. Poland and Hungary, which are now accused of violating democracy in the EU, passed this test. For example, Freedom House said back in 2020 that Hungary had fallen out of the cluster of democracies. "That's why there are a lot of people who say that evaluating Ukraine so meticulously in this situation is not fair enough. Because this sieve doesn't work, but it shouldn't be a message for us to relax," Tetiana Komarova said.
According to Liubov Akulenko, the war has shown that all politicians react strongly to public sentiment. Despite the high level of support from the EU member states' citizens, their political leadership pursues policies that are far from what their society expresses. "We must work outside very actively. We have just started to get actively involved in this process. But I think we still have a long way to go. And we need to actively develop this front. Since all the narratives that are now popping up in each country against Ukraine, these are all the narratives that Russia has developed. And why did she develop them? For us not to be there," Liubov Akulenko said. Europeans are now very skeptical about all official speeches. They trust experts and civil society more. Therefore, for us, it is a huge field to develop trust there. "We always make so many commitments. It's a suitcase without a handle. But sometimes we don't have enough resources and money. And we always stand in front of Europeans like the guilty schoolchildren that didn't do something because it was very difficult," Liubov Akulenko said. The expert believes that when we have a strong incentive to apply and a tough European integration vertical, everything will be controlled - the process of drafting acts, their implementation, and consultations - there will be no weaknesses, and the EU won't be able to "bite" us.
According to Marianna Fakhurdinova, harmonization of legislation will be more important at the negotiation stage. But now more important is the negotiation process, communicating our position and combating the narratives and prejudices that exist in skeptical European capitals. The expert believes that the main fears of parliamentarians in skeptical countries may be: 1) the feeling of injustice in giving a boost to Ukraine now, but forgetting about the Western Balkans, where countries have been working on their homework for some time; 2) the priority is to reform the EU itself, for example, to introduce decision-making by a qualified majority rather than unanimously by the 27 Member States, so that certain issues are not blocked by one country; 3) fatigue from the enlargement itself, as there are already five officially recognized candidate countries and two more potential candidates; 4) the issue of war and russia - a policy of appeasing the aggressor and the expectation that Ukraine itself may abandon the European perspective, so allegedly should not rush to encourage her candidate status. "The example of arms supplies to Ukraine is illustrative. At the beginning of the war, it seemed fantastic to us, and nobody even talked about it. Thanks to Ukraine's strong negotiating position, and coordinated work of diplomats and the public sector, we managed to reach now they supply us with heavy weapons. More than 40 countries are gathering to provide weapons to Ukraine. Therefore, in general, the negotiation process is very important, but the implementation of reforms in the future is also important," Marianna Fakhurdinova said.
The experts also shared their views on the future of Ukraine's status in the European community.
Tetiana Komarova believes that Ukrainians didn't think they were worthy of the EU because of their inferiority complex, which has no basis. 70% of the population of Ukraine has never left their region. Now a large number of migrants can see for themselves that we are worthy.
As Liubov Akulenko noted, European integration is the hook that has already allowed us to carry out many sectoral reforms which we could not even dream of before. However, we have not yet reached the political sphere. "I want so much this current situation to make reforms in the political sphere inevitable - anti-corruption, court reforms. Accordingly, if we pass this block, then, in general, European integration is possible," Liubov Akulenko said. She believes that now, after the war, we can become a very strong player and "stop running and asking them to accept us." We just need to use all the processes and opportunities that the EU provides and become strong. "Whether we will be in the EU or make some kind of union with the countries of Eastern Europe - time will tell. Because now, I see, the EU politicians themselves are far behind from signals their societies give them," Liubov Akulenko said.
Marianna Fakhurdinova has a little request for all Ukrainians in the context of Ukraine gaining the status of a candidate - to make a small contribution locally just as we are doing to overcome russian aggression. "The process of European integration must help us implement reforms and become better, create a state comfortable for living. Do not make EU membership and candidate status an end in itself, but make it a tool to improve living standards," Marianna Fakhurdinova said.
Finally, the experts suggested options for how we can explain to Europeans their benefits from Ukraine's accession to the EU as soon as possible.
According to Liubov Akulenko, messages can be divided into several blocks. The first is security. The fact that there is a strong player in Europe who will guarantee their safety. The second is economic. Only the war showed how important our food is to them. Oil, mustard, grain. We are a food depot for the world. And because of the war in Ukraine, prices will soar everywhere. We can be their guarantor of low prices. The third is resources. They are aware of this. They'll definitely benefit from our migration wave because our migrants are highly skilled workers who often know the language. If women with children decide to stay, it's a solution to a number of demographic issues in the future.
According to Tetiana Komarova, we have not articulated enough why Ukraine is so important. Probably because we didn't work enough after 2014, Europe and the US did not fully understand what the war in Ukraine could lead to. But now they clearly understand this. She believes that we should learn to articulate the consequences of the war - the things that are happening in our country, and it will be felt by the whole world.
Olha Kotsiuruba, Senior Legal Adviser at OPORA, summed up the elements of the formula for Ukraine's success suggested by the experts. "We tried to find this formula for success. We must 1) take a proactive position, 2) believe in ourselves and that not only do we need the EU, but the EU also needs us, 3) don't let go of anyone in the case of reforms, especially political - anti-corruption, a court - because without this component there will be no success, 4) fight against russian disinformation in the world, 5) try to make friends and gain support there, 6) be able to articulate our position abroad," Olha Kotsiuruba said.
The broadcast video is available for viewing on the Facebook page and the YouTube channel of OPORA.